Bridge
2008
Friday, 4:30 p.m.
Eric and I are suspended over the water, halfway between Oakland and San Francisco.
A romantic way of saying we’re stuck in traffic on the Bay Bridge.
I have nothing to do but stare out my window at the scenery.
Lush, graceful Angel Island.
Barren, lumpen Alcatraz.
The hills of Sausalito in the distance, beyond the fog.
Ferries whisking tourists and commuters across the water.
Does the Bay Freedom still run, carrying lovers back and forth?
I can’t look away.
On the front bench of the top deck I see a Becc who’s becoming restless. She’s always been so clever with words, but she can’t seem to say, It’s over.
And she doesn’t know why.
I want to tell her that sometimes the words just won’t come. Especially when you’re twenty, and you’ve never been with anyone else. And you’re clinging to the sweet start, holding on a little longer than you should.
Another Becc is standing at the bow of the rocking ferry, holding her key. Trying so hard to release it into the cold waves.
I see Cal across the bed. Looking confused, surprised that even his charm has limits.
I picture the bottom of San Francisco Bay littered with the discards of other affairs. Other keys. Some are still floating down. Some are settling into the silty ocean floor, and some are rusty and buried, crumbling into nothing.
I thought I’d forgiven myself for the choices I made ten years ago. The decisions that I knew were wrong at the time, and the ones I thought were right.